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Job Market Pie

By Catherine Rampell April 30, 2009 1:24 pmApril 30, 2009 1:24 pm

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released its latest report on “discouraged” and other “marginally attached” workers — that is, the people who don’t get counted in the official unemployment numbers, but have nonetheless been affected by the deterioration of the job market.

Workers who are “marginally attached” to the labor force have looked for work some time in the last 12 months, but have not actively searched for work in the previous four weeks. These people generally stopped looking for work because they became discouraged by job market conditions, or because of reasons like family responsibilities or transportation problems. Not surprisingly, the number of workers who went from being in the labor force to “marginally attached” to it has risen during the recession.

A chart gives a sense of the distribution of the civilian noninstitutional population in the first quarter of this year.

I don’t know about the rest of America, but I have had a really tough time finding employment recently. The job market is not very dense as far as I can tell. It appears to be clouded with alot of Recruiters and weird opportunities to become a millionare, with strings attach. Anyone else?

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